Gi Bill

If you serve or have served your country in one of the armed forces, then you are eligible for various types of educational financial aid. The options differ if you are in school, if you have already graduated but have not yet enlisted, or if you are on active duty or a veteran.

Obama may have disliked some of Churchill's activities earlier in his career, but there can be little question that during the West's darkest hour in several centuries, it was Winston Churchill who saved civilization. We face similar challenges today.

The number of times that Sen. McCain hasn't just been wrong, but deadly wrong, on matters of our security is nearly impossible to count. Maybe the DC fishbowl has convinced itself that McCain has been prescient. Well, I'm here to give them a quick education, because many of us who have served in the these conflicts are less convinced.

The promise of the American Dream has begun to fade, as college costs have now risen to such a level that for many they have become like unaffordable luxury goods. US postsecondary education costs have risen at a rate more than twice the cost increases in health care -- a figure which everyone knows is unsustainable.

On Sunday, June 22, we will commemorate the 70th anniversary of the G.I. Bill becoming the law of the land. Innumerable individuals have benefitted from this far-sighted policy, signed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

In recent years, for-profit colleges and universities (such as the University of Phoenix) have heavily recruited veterans to become students. These institutions have a vested financial interest in doing so.

For me, going to war meant a quantum leap in the quality of my life. Otherwise, I might never have left a factory job in Newark, New Jersey. When, in 1943, I entered a training program for the Army Air Corps, my life started on a new trajectory.

In 2012, more than $8 billion in government support for eligible veterans was paid out to colleges and universities around the country. You might assume by this staggering number that veterans education is a huge success. But a tuition bill doesn't equal a degree.

One deplorable practice that epitomizes the triumph of greed over the greater good is the exploitation of our returning Iraq and Afghanistan veterans by predatory players in the for-profit "education" industry.

Today is Veteran's Day, an often overlooked holiday honoring American military veterans. Unfortunately, the relative obscurity of the holiday is a metaphor for the reduced support by our government for the millions of veterans who have served our country.

In a time of economic hardship, meeting financial obligations in full removes one major concern. The problem, however, is too many schools believe their work in embracing veterans begins and ends with the Yellow Ribbon Program.

College and universities in the United States have a long history of offering veterans an opportunity to use their education benefits to help pay for their higher education. But is helping pay for their tuition enough to get a veteran into the workforce?

Many colleges and universities call themselves "veteran-friendly." Although being friendly is a noble virtue, it often falls short of the measures that can actually lead to a vet's success after graduation.

Academia attracts few veterans. School officials across the state seem at a loss on how to implement the somewhat vague plan, disinterested in implementation or totally unaware that a plan even exists.